Crowded San Joaquin route needs more Amtrak trains

Since moving up to Visalia from the Los Angeles area, I have made many visits to Los Angeles.

Some of these trips have been on Highway 99. And one time, when I needed to make a tight connection at LAX, I drove counter-intuitively north to Fresno Yosemite International, quite possibly the only airport on Earth with a fake Sequoia forest.

However, most of my trips have been by train.

Yes, Amtrak has a reputation for being slow and tardy. The slowness charge is arguably true; the train can take longer than driving. This is largely because the only railroad route through the Coast Range is via Tehachapi Pass, which is slow and crowded with freight. Amtrak uses buses over the Grapevine to bridge the gap instead. This has meant an extra transfer and layover at Bakersfield.

However, Amtrak California gets a bum rap on lateness. The Washington Post recently reported that the San Joaquin train is on time 75.1 percent of the time, while the Capitol Corridor between San Jose and Sacramento is on time a whopping 95.2 percent. U.S. airlines have 76 percent on-time performance.

Overall, my Amtrak experience has been positive. I can rest or read on the train. Amtrak recently added Wi-Fi. A round-trip ticket is much cheaper than flying and a reasonable alternative to rising gas prices.

Even with diesel locomotives, the train is more friendly to the Valley's smog-filled environment than Highway 99 is. (Electric would be even more clean, but California is not Japan.)

And I'm not the only person who is riding. Amtrak publishes annual ridership statistics, and for several years in a row, the numbers have been going up for all of Amtrak California's trains.

But don't take Amtrak's word for it, see for yourself. The trains which I have taken lately have been more crowded than when I started riding, and the connector buses are often full.

If the United States put as much into rail transit as it puts into highways, Amtrak could have responded to this increase in demand with an increase in the number of trains. But that is impossible under Amtrak's constant budget crunch.

Thankfully, Valley officials are thinking about these issues. The San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority's business plan proposes adding seventh and eighth trains to the schedule. They are also looking at new stations north of Bakersfield and in North Fresno. Of course, new trains will need new train cars.

High-speed rail is still several years off, but the introduction of faster trains should not spell the end for local trains. Indeed, local train service — whether under the Amtrak banner or under a new, local commuter rail authority similar to Southern California's Metrolink — will be more important than ever. High-speed rail will depend on local transit to provide links, just as freeways need local streets.

In the meantime, adding a seventh train to the schedule — perhaps an early run to get to L.A. by lunchtime — would give Valley residents more chances to try the train.

­

James Fujita is a Times-Delta staffer and an advocate of high-speed rail.